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Sunday, 2 October 2011

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING!!!

Although Russian cinema goes back beyond the Soviet Union to when it was the Russian Empire, Andrei Konchalovsky, the director behind Hollywood films such as Runaway Train and Tango and Cash, was one of the first Russian directors that I had heard of that was working within the Hollywood system, or in the action genre in general.

The aforementioned movies were, of course, simply US movies that were directed by a Russian. What about wholly Russian made action films that have found an audience internationally???

In the last few years there has been an all-out explosion of new talent coming from the semi-presidential republic - the first that really caught this action movie addict's eye was Timur Bekmambetov, director of the sublime horror / action epic, Night Watch (which he followed with the sequel, Daywatch and the recent US hit, Wanted).

Another Bekmambetov-related movie you may not have heard of is the Alexandr Voitinsky and Dmitry Kiseliov-directed movie (which TB produced), Black Lightning. It features (in a very Spider-Man-esque way) a poor young college kid who receives a present in the form of a crappy car - only to find that the car is much more than what it appears...